I eat the wild

Catnip blossoms are one of many natural delicacies offered by the Oregonian wilderness. Jon Sullivan/Public Domain

Yo, you wanna hallucinate some stuff? Of course you don’t, not when society is so close to crumbling from global warming. No, man, you need to be ready to bug out when it all goes sideways, and everyone knows the best place to be at the outset of the apocalypse is the pastoral wilderness.

Here are a few things you can eat in the Pacific Northwest wilds while you wait for shit to die down in the cities and for the glorious, utopian city-state of Cascadia to rise from the ashes.

Devil’s club

Devil’s club is not the crazy club drug that its name might make it sound like. It’s actually a berry-bearing plant. Quick word to the wise: Don’t eat the berries. You can eat the roots and stems after they’ve been cooked. The leaves can be eaten raw, but, again, don’t eat the berries.

Dandelion

One cool trick to weird out your friends is to eat a dandelion whole. Like, all in one mouthful, because you can. A dandelion can be eaten in its entirety, raw. The roots can even be roasted as a coffee alternative. Hey, I don’t make the rules. I just report them. Also, a serving of dandelion green contains the same amount of calcium as a half cup of milk. Nature is weird.

Stinging nettle

Do you remember the cenobites from the movie Hellraiser? You know, the dimension-traveling monsters that were obsessed with pleasure and pain? Well, I have to imagine they subsist on a diet of stinging nettles, because you can certainly eat the spiny plant, but, man, does it hurt. Maybe stick to the shoots and roots, which can be eaten when cooked. Steer clear of the leaves unless you’re a real Pinhead.

Miner’s lettuce

I don’t usually promote eating anything that is preceded by the word miner, but miner’s lettuce is a fairly common, stringy plant that looks absolutely nothing like lettuce but can be eaten whole, raw. Do note that miner’s lettuce is not a head of lettuce you find in a mine. Also, don’t eat things you find in a mine.

Jerusalem artichoke

Its name might sound like a cool wrestling move, but the jerusalem artichoke actually has a tuber at its root which, when cooked like a potato, actually tastes a lot like a potato. The tuber itself actually looks a lot like ginger root, but that shouldn’t stop you as it’s high in nutritional value, too.

Catnip

There’s a secret that cats don’t want you to know, and it’s that you can eat catnip. That’s right, you can finally take something valuable from your cat. The young leaves of catnip can be eaten raw, but the older leaves can be used as a seasoning. It tastes like unreasonable excitability.

Arrowhead

Arrowhead is probably one of the safest things you can eat in the Oregon wilderness. Not only can you eat the stems cooked, but the tubers of this plant are edible raw. You can even dislodge the tubers with your foot, as this plant often resides in the shallow waters of ponds and lakes.